Hearty Welcome in Banagher

This lodging-house in Banagher has associations which will live in grateful remembrance while memory lasts. Did they say, when I entered wet and weary, (for I had walked for hours in a heavy rain) did they say, "Who is this strange woman, at this late hour asking for lodgings; she must he mad?" but "Come in, come in, ye're wet and wairy. How far have ye walked in the stawrm? Come into the kitchen and dry yer clothes, and ye must be a stranger, and we'll get ye the cup of tay; ye must he hungry." All this was said and more, before I had told them who I was, and what brought me there. When this was known, if possible the kindness was redoubled. I told them I had but sixpence-halfpenny in my purse, and could only get a night's lodging and two or three potatoes. "And that you will get; and a week's lodgin' in welcome. Not a hap'orth of them two crippled feet shall go out of my house till they're healed," answered the man. The servant was called to fetch water to bathe my feet, "and we'll do what we can for ye, the cratur!" And faithfully did they perform their promise; they were kind to a fault. They were Catholics, but they listened to the Word of Life with the most profound attention, and without any opposition. They told their neighbors they fully believed I was inspired of God to come to Ireland, and do them good. What was this good? Certainly not money, and this they well knew.

They gathered about me in the evening in crowds; and when I had read two hours, such a breathless silence was in the room, that I looked about to ascertain whether all who were behind me had not left it, when I saw the place was filled to crowding, sitting upon the floor; and so quietly had they entered that I knew it not. Till one o'clock I read, a peasant woman, sitting at my feet, holding a candle; and when I said, "you must be tired," "And that I ain't, the long night wouldn't tire me, to be listenin' to ye."

"Ain't she a Protestant? an old man whispered. "She's a Christian sent here to discoorse us, and do ye think the like of her would crass the ocean to see the poor, and discoorse 'em as she does, if God hadn't sent her?" The old man seemed satisfied, and the point was settled by "Aw! there's no use in talkin'. The like of her couldn't be found in all Ireland." This last was said audibly, while I was turning the leaves of my book for a new chapter.

Ireland’s Welome to the Stranger is one of the best accounts of Irish social conditions, customs, quirks and habits that you could wish for. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, was an American widow who travelled extensively in Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine and meticulously observed the Irish peasantry at work and play, as well as noting their living conditions and diet. The book is also available from Kindle.

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Featured Books

Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger (also onKindle) is an American widow’s account of her travels in Ireland in 1844–45 on the eve of the Great Famine. Sailing from New York, she set out to determine the condition of the Irish poor and discover why so many were emigrating to her home country. Mrs Nicholson’s recollections of her tour among the peasantry are still revealing and gripping today. The author returned to Ireland in 1847–49 to help with famine relief and recorded those experiences in the rather harrowingAnnals of the Famine in Ireland (Kindle version here).

Annals of the Famine in Ireland is Asenath Nicholson's sequel to Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger. The undaunted American widow returned to Ireland in the midst of the Great Famine and helped organise relief for the destitute and hungry. Her account is not a history of the famine, but personal eyewitness testimony to the suffering it caused. For that reason, it conveys the reality of the calamity in a much more telling way. The book is also available in Kindle.

The Scotch-Irish in America tells the story of how the hardy breed of men and women, who in America came to be known as the ‘Scotch-Irish’, was forged in the north of Ireland during the seventeenth century. It relates the circumstances under which the great exodus to the New World began, the trials and tribulations faced by these tough American pioneers and the enduring influence they came to exert on the politics, education and religion of the country.